On Valentine’s Day most people express their love and appreciation for family and friends.  Yet so often those individuals who we spend the majority of our time with, our coworkers and employees, go unrecognized on this "intimate" holiday. My personal belief is that Valentine's Day also provides an opportunity to express your appreciation, support and care for the people you work with. With this in mind, I wanted to share with you a list of things that I have done and/or plan to do to show appreciation for the people that I work with. 1)  Treat your employees with respect. Ongoing business success stories can only be achieved with certain cornerstones in place.  One of these critical foundations is feeling and showing respect for your employees.  RESPECT is 24/7 – you appreciate, value and genuinely respect employees at all times.  Even the smallest showing of disrespect negatively affects everyone’s morale, productivity and work quality. 2)  Send your employees a hand-written note to show your appreciation, or pick up the phone to check in with them. With social media today, people have forgotten the lost art of a handwritten note – send a handwritten thank you to clients and colleagues.  On Valentine’s Day, I plan to send a note to all of our staff individually expressing my appreciation for all that they do for Strategic Partners. 3)  Send out cards!  Birthdays, thank-you, congratulations, condolences. This added touch does a lot to lift morale and let your employees and special clients know you genuinely care about them. 4)  Advocate for your employees when they can’t advocate for themselves. Your employees that have very high expectations for themselves sometimes have a hard time saying “no.”  For example, I decided to no bid an RFP that I would like for us to bid, but I think it would have made us crazy to do so. 5)  Help your employee maintain work/life balance. An employee may lose sight of their personal life … [Read more...]